Garry Burton, Chick Corea at Kimmel Center Nov. 9

Gary Burton is internationally recognized as one of the jazz world’s all-time great vibraphonists. Chick Corea has been bestowed with similar accolades as one of the best-ever jazz keyboard players.

Every once in awhile, these two masters join forces for special projects -- usually to record an album and then tour briefly in support of the disc.

“My history with Chick goes back 40 years,” said Burton, during a phone interview this week from his home in Florida. “It started in 1972 and we’ve played together every year. We’ve done seven records together.

“Chick is the most versatile musician in the jazz world. We’ve always had our own bands and projects but we also set aside time to play together.”

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Burton and Corea have teamed up again this year.

They recorded an album titled “Hot House” with the Harlem String Quartet and now are out on a brief tour together -- a tour that visits the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia on Nov. 9. As an added attraction, they will be performing as a duo and with the quartet.

“The first half of the show will be just me and Chick playing music from the new record,” said Burton. “The second half will be with the Harlem String Quartet.”

The “Hot House” album is the seventh collaborative recording from Chick Corea and Gary Burton that explores classic American pop music and jazz modernism. The album features a wide range of new jazz interpretations of music by Kurt Weill, Lennon and McCartney, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

“Instead of original music, we went with what we consider standards -- especially music from the 50s and 60s,” said Burton, who has won six and been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards. “We had about 20 songs to begin with. We were looking for a good balance to get the right kind of variety.

“We settled on nine songs and then added one original -- a new song by Chick. Then, he thought it would be even better if we added a string quartet. We both live in Florida so we flew to New York for one session to add the Harlem String Quartet.

“When Chick and I work on new material, we come up with a core arrangement for a piece. Then, we try it out in front of a live audience. That way, we can find the weak spots and fine tune the composition before we record it.”

Usually, the compositions as performed on the album vary a lot from the way they are performed in a live show.

“The songs continue to change after we have recorded them,” said Burton, who taught at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and served as the prestigious school’s Executive Vice President until 2003. “With the improvisational nature of jazz, the composition always goes through an evolution.”